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Archive >> August 2000
In Chicago Beach did Fletcher a stately pleasure dome build
Fletcher Construction was the managing partner in the construction of the world’s tallest hotel, the hyper-luxury Burj Al Arab Hotel in the United Arab Emirates. The facade, designed like…
Moko-Maori
“Ta moko exposes more than the revival of a tradition – it reveals the beauty of Maori past and the promise of Maori future.” – photographer Hans Neleman in Moko-Maori Tattoo.
Flaming Fox
“It’s difficult to pin down Kerry Fox. For every film-goer who knows her as the murderous medical student in Shallow Grave, there’s another who remembers her as the dumpy…
Kiwi Trout: Once Bitten
Studies at the Cawthorn Institute in Nelson have revealed that trout learn from experience. Fish that have been caught and returned to the water stay out of sight next time. The trout…
Xena Fights Child Abuse
Xena Princess Warrior has launched a real-life crusade against child abuse in New Zealand. Using her profile, Lucy Lawless has begun a national campaign to raise money for child protection…
Musicking: an activity not a thing
New Zealander Christopher Small’s books have been paradigm-changing events. His latest “Musicking” focuses on what Small believes is music’s ultimate function: “to provide insight into relationships: between and among…
Edger takes to fringe
New Zealand actress Giarna Te Kanawa in New York plays all five parts in “Verbatim” by William Brandt and Miranda Harcourt, which played in the New York Fringe Festival….
Kiwi to Protect London Children
Moira Rayner has been appointed Director of the newly formed Office of Children’s Right’s Commissioner for London. She is a New Zealand lawyer with international experience in the field…
Genie Rubs Up Well
Genie Systems’ OrderWare is now running in 10 US Babies ‘R’ Us stores, and is set to fully installed by next year. “Australasian software businesses have a unique style of software, and therefore…
Flaming Poi at Burning Man
Nevada’s Burning Man festival will have a distinct Kiwi heat. Flaming poi, dubbed an ‘emerging trend’ by Time, will feature in complicated and spectacular night-time routines.
Flax: A Protective Edge
The Sunday Times garden columnist, Dan Pearson, gets all excited about Phorium tenax: New Zealand flax, or Harakeke. He’s found its adaptation to New Zealand’s harsh coasts makes it the perfect…
Banking on Success
39 year-old Stuart Grimshaw used to put his body on the line for New Zealand, playing hockey at top international level. These days, as the new CEO of the Clydesdale and…
Terrorist Reaction
Rumours of New Zealand-based terrorist cells targeting the games in Sydney have been around for a while. Last week New Zealand police discovered a lounge in Auckland piled high…
Striking a Cool Note
The arts festival running concurrently with the games in Sydney features Vaughan William’s Sinfonia Antarctica performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, with narration by Sir Edmund…
No Time Limit on Retrieving the Dead
In May 1941, a Fairey Battle bomber crashed in remote Iceland. New Zealand Flying Officer Arthur Round’s body, and the bodies of the three other casualties, have just been retrieved from the…
Edge Factor
Canadian-born, New Zealand-raised Anna Paquin is studying English literature of Columbia University and starring in two hot movies X-Men and Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous. Winning the Oscar was…
Peerless Mansfield in Chicago
Katherine Mansfield’s intricate and beautiful stories continue to resonante around the world. “The New Zealand-born Mansfield, who died in 1923 at 34, was a peerless observer of the…
Beefsteaks Ruled by Women
Women currently fill the highest offices in New Zealand. Some people find this rather incongruous. “…this progress might be thought a bit of a shock for a country famous…
#25 Kiwis Rock The Globe
Edge Message #25 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM
TO NZEDGE.COM COMMUNITY
GLOBAL NEWS
More Kiwis rock the globe this week. Over 80 new items in NEWZEDGE don’t mind the width, just…
Proteas in Houston
Not aliens brought back by pathfinder, but an exhibition by New Zealand artist Zoe Calder at the Museum of Natural Science in Houston. Proteaceae are a large family of…
Legendary Kiwi Credited with Giving Great Journalist His Start
Rex Lopez died late last month, ending an illustrious career as a journalist and critic. Lopez spent much of his life in Australia, but legendary Kiwi journalist, radio commentator, war correspondent, novelist…
Kiwi on Panel to Improve UN’S Peace-keeping Ability
Dame Ann Hercus represented New Zealand on a special panel formed to examine the UN’s peace-keeping resources. “While stopping short of calling for a permanent U.N. army, the panel appealed to…
Still Crowe-ing
Does Bill Bryson bring Russell Crowe to mind? For some book reviewers, anything south of the equator can be connected with the Edge’s hunkiest export.
All Sewn Up
New Zealand designer Therese Hollingsworth has won the Textile category of the Country Road Design Awards. Her piece, felted was strongly influenced by the “simplicity and symmetry of Japanese design”.
Phar Lap’s Hide on Display Again After Three Years in Storage
“The hide is in Melbourne, the heart in Canberra. The bones are in Wellington, the big delicate skeleton of a horse who used to mean business.” (from ‘Phar Lap’, by Bill Manhire)…
Listen up there, folks!
Jim Cuddy, one of the starring acts at the upcoming Ottawa Folk Festival, praises the depth of folk talent in New Zealand, but claims we’re not sufficiently proud of…
Domestic round
Kiwi ingenuity presents the solution to your sunlight problems: turn the house around! Don Dunick spent fifteen years designing and building the world’s first fully revolving house.
Ruskies Clone NZ Lawyers
“A computer programmer from St Petersburg has cloned a New Zealand law firm’s website and changed its details to make it appear Russian. Patent attorney A J Park’s website was plagarised…
New Zealanders’ Innovation Inspires Wedding on the Web
The wedding of Mr and Mrs Ram in Brent County, UK will be broadcast live on the web. Inspired by a NZ couple efforts to share their wedding with friends and…
Riff-Raff #2
“I didn’t want a conventional actor, and Richard O’Brien is in some ways very close, in our day, to what Farinelli was in his – a cult hero whom…
Kiwi Runners Feel the Pain
In the US they run to escape the pressures of work. In the UK they find running leaves the mind time to think about sex. Kiwis, on the other hand, think…
Secret History
An Italian monk’s stinging criticism of British mistreatment of Maori has been published in New Zealand for the first time – more than 100 years after it was written. Written by…
Cancer Clue in Birthmarks
New Zealand researchers led by plastic surgeon Swee Tan have found a gene they believe helps shrink a benign tumour. The gene, they hope, may do the same thing in cancerous…
Learning from Grandma and the “Notorious” Truby King
A expectant grand-daughter ponders generational attitudes to child-rearing, musing on her grandmother’s strict training under New Zealander Truby King”: ” is the Aunt Sally for almost all post-war child-rearing books … His…
Chris Knox: Not the Hallmark variety
Rolling Stone praises Chris Knox’s latest effort: “You can always count on a rock eccentric to make you scratch your head – but touch your heart? That’s usually not…
Obituary: Sir Peter Platt, Musicologist
Sir Peter Platt was born in Sheffield but spent a lifetime merging the music of the edges in the antipodes: he regarded an understanding of the music of the regions as…
New Zealand Urges Japan to Halt Whaling
Representatives of 15 countries have urged Japan, the world’s largest consumer of whale meat, to halt its research whaling. New Zealand and Australia, along with anti-whaling groups and conservationists have been at…
Tiger’s Big Brother
“He walks with him, laughs with him, listens to him, and knows what to say to him and how to say it.” The New York Time describes Kiwi caddy Steve Williams…
Starbright and the Dreameater
Kiwi author Joy Cowley gets a glowing review for her latest childrens’ book whose story “could be a mix of the ‘X-files’ and ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’… The plot…
Air NZ Freshener
Air New Zealand is helping the in-transit global citizen feel more at home by offering amenity kits to make passengers feel fresh as a daisy when they debark. First Class flyers…
Canary Breaks Free of its Textual Cage in Mansfield Adaptation
A short story by Katherine Mansfield “The Canary” has been adapted for the theatre by Walk About Theatre Company in Chicago.
#24 Hot On The Edge
Edge Message #24 from Brian Sweeney, producer NZEDGE.COM
TO NZEDGE.COM COMMUNITY
We’ve been cooking, and are pleased to serve you up NZEDGE HOT. When Taupo erupted nearly 2000 years ago…
The Gould Standard
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Waikato and former British Labour spokesman Bryan Gould offers his perspective on one of the most heated debates in British politics – the integration of European…
Zambesi Zen
Relax, salute the sun: this summer warm to the meticulously designed, unstructured, ‘new age’ look picked to capture the fashion mood. Yoga inspired spiritual materials for contemplative consumption. Leading…
Hitting Sex Criminals Where it Hurts
Maori activist Titewhai Harawira has recommended a traditional Maori punishment for sex criminals to ensure that they don’t re-offend: Her solution: tying flax around the offender’s penis and pulling until the…
Te Rangi Hiroa/Sir Peter Buck Remembered
The Sunday Times remembers the birthday of Sir Peter Buck – a pioneering and internationally renowned anthropologist, the first Maori medical doctor, a politician, administrator, soldier, and leader of…
More Marie Clay Pedagogue Innovation
Marie Clay’s “running records” reading assessment programme proved the hit of Howard County’s reading summer institute. “Running records were developed in the 1970s by the same New Zealand psychologist…
Rock at Home
Alex Ross’ investigation of New Zealand music rock: “surface blips in the international musical marketplace give only a hint…
Festival founding flutist celebrates the Hampton summer
Internationally acclaimed New Zealand-born flutist Marya Martin (Winner of the prestigious Young Concert Artists International Auditions) is the flute and artistic artistic director of the Bridgehampton Chamber…
Kiwi Museum Authority Leads Berlin’s Jewish Museum
Ken Gorbey of Te Papa, “New Zealand’s enormously successful national museum,” has been appointed artistic leader of of one of the new Berlin’s emblematic projects: the Daniel Liebeskind designed…
Twin Poi: Fire Play With Me
Ultimate frisbee and hackeysack just don’t cut it anymore for the young and birkenstocked. Young Americans looking for the latest hip zen vibe have been inspired by Maori ritual: “Poi, an…
Maori Mystique
The Washington Post’s Kid’s Section “Web@tlas” spotlights Australia and New Zealand, inviting readers to “take a peek into the world of the Maori – including the intricate tattoos that…
The Dunedin Sound #2
On August 9th, the 34th annual MacCrimmon Piobaireachd recital took place, as always, in the drawing room of Dunvegan Castle in Skye, Scotland, the seat of the 29th Chief…
Cycling Gold
New Zealand won two gold medals in the fifth and final leg of the Track World Cup Cycling Championship. Glen Thompson won in the 30km points race and Sarah Ulmer continued…
Sssshhh! Silence is Regulated Golden
A multiplex in Birmingham banning kissing in its cinemas prompted the BBC to investigate cinema etiquette leading them to uncover the news that an independent cinema in Wellington, New…
Crowe Songs Attract Flock of Acolytes
Crowds packed, paid up to $300 and queued for up to 12 hours to get into Stubb’s Bar-B-Q in Austin, Texas, for a performance by an unknown country-rock band…
